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Profiles of Paris: Nigel Topping on the path from Paris to Regenerative Economics

Nigel Topping, CEO of the We Mean Business coalition

My earliest experience of the United Nations was not auspicious. After 20 years in the private sector, I first attended UN climate negotiations at COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009 on behalf of the Carbon Disclosure Project. Despite having full accreditation, I spent 8 hours in sub-zero temperatures with an increasingly frustrated, cold, hungry, fractious crowd, including several senior negotiators. I could sense the crowd losing faith in the very institution we were supposedly relying on to save the world from the worst impacts of climate change. Some delegates were writing messages of distress like ‘haven’t had any water for 10 hours’ and pushing them up against a wire fence for cameras to broadcast around the world. It felt like the scene in the dystopian film I Am Legend when the last ferry departs Manhattan, leaving thousands behind to a gruesome fate.

I pondered our ability to get tens of thousands of people quickly and safely in and out of pop concerts and football matches every day of the week somewhere in the world and the inability of the UN to pull off this most basic of requirements for successful negotiations. I left and spent the rest of my time in Copenhagen in a hotel several miles away where businesses, cities, senators, those with no formal role inside the UNFCCC but with plenty of skin in the game, were rolling up their sleeves, sharing ideas, exploring what they could contribute to our shared challenge. My conviction then that those businesses with a real stake in the future of our planet, and the power to contribute to solutions, should somehow be included in the UN process would have to wait 4 years before we started to see progress.

The first signs of that progress came in the cold grey winter of 2013 at COP 19 in Warsaw, Poland. I have memories of a soulless conference building and Ban Ki-moon calling a small group of us together – leaders from business and NGOs working with business – acknowledging that this group had much to offer and inviting our voices inside the conversation, though not of course inside the formal legal process.

The next year two passionate Chief Sustainability Officers, Steve Howard of IKEA and Hannah Jones of NIKE, called a group of business NGOs together and laid down the gauntlet – whilst each organisation was doing great work, we were being outspent and out-communicated by those who would benefit from delayed climate action. It was time for us to come together and get aligned quickly if we were to have a chance of using the many positive voices from global business to influence the Paris negotiations. And so we formed We Mean Business – a coalition of NGOs working with thousands of the world’s largest businesses to accelerate action on climate change. We came together to align our messages and give power to the voices of the majority of CEOs who understand the science and are committed to the transition. These leaders are increasingly stepping up courageously themselves and calling for long, loud, legal policy signals to help harness the power of business to deliver the solutions we need.

We agreed aligned messages and created a simplified ‘Take Action’ platform of transformative commitments, which business leaders could take. Launched at the Secretary-General’s Climate Summit in September 2014, this platform included commitments such as ‘Science Based Targets’ [clear public commitments to reduced company emissions along the entire value chain in line with the science of 2 degrees] and RE100 [an unambiguous commitment to source 100% of a company’s electricity from renewable sources].

By the Lima COP later that year, momentum was already building. Growing numbers of businesses were asking for a bold climate agreement and speaking out, even attending the COP to make sure that negotiators heard from them directly. They wanted a clear target, long-term policies and a global framework, although we hadn’t yet figured out how to deliver these messages to negotiators in a language which was helpful to them in crafting treaty text.

Many personal and structural elements came together in the run up to Paris to ensure exceptional alignment among a diverse range of actors.

For example, my good friend and colleague at CDP, Tom Carnac, joined Christiana Figueres as a key advisor at this time – this meant Tom and I could very quickly exchange ideas and put solutions into practice on the basis of trust, not having to wait for long institutional decision-making processes. Secondly, I joined one of Christiana Figueres’ strategy groups, meeting from time to time to share ideas and align intentions. Finally, our group of business NGOs opened up communication with leading civil society organisations, enabling us to explain to each other our thinking and tactics and to avoid mis-interpretations which could have undermined our impact. As a result of all of this we were able to avoid a splintering based on minor differences along the lines of the famous Monty Python ‘People’s Front of Judea’ scene from The Life of Brian, focussing on our common ambition that we should secure a successful, ambitious deal.

By the time we arrived in Paris, the coalition partners had learned to value their differences, seeing strength in the diversity of our approaches, when in service of a shared mission. And we were organised. With over 70 staff all linked via WhatsApp, we had access to many delegations who were keen to understand what business was looking for and put on a host of events to spread the news that business was in town to help ensure a deal was done. To support this we identified 8 very specific elements of a treaty, which would be welcomed by the majority of the global businesses in our community. This equipped all of our teams and business attendees with the specific language needed to translate these ideas into elements of the text which was actually being negotiated.

My memories of the 2 weeks of COP21 are a blur of impressions. I existed on a few hours of sleep each day, decadal high adrenaline levels, camaraderie and the audacity of hope.

The We Mean Business offices were a long away from UNFCCC rooms at the far end of the conference centre, so I walked miles every day back and forth, visiting delegations, participating in events, talking to media, often meeting Tom Carnac for a quick coffee or beer depending on time of day to share news, ideas.

I came to see, feel and understand our highest nature as cooperative beings when we align with a transcendent collective purpose. It was my honour to lead a small secretariat team within a larger We Mean Business team within a huge climate solution community within the community of humankind, blessed to be given and to share a role of such purpose.

In the second week I had to pinch myself – I had never imagined I would end up with Tom and Al Gore holding daily briefings for the growing groups of CEOs, mayors and governors, who had turned up to lend their shoulders to the wheel and were asking for advice on how best to help.

I witnessed evidence that supported our founding beliefs – that a group of future-oriented private sector companies, and their CEOs, have the power to shape a constructive narrative rather than a regressive one.

I felt the humanity of lead negotiators with Christiana Figueres being looked after by her daughters, Laurence Tubiana working tirelessly despite a recent ankle injury, Manuel Pulgar Vidal’s unceasing generosity and good humour and the grace of Ajay Mathur as I realised he was not just negotiating India’s position within the UNFCCC but negotiating with domestic politics at the same time.

For the first time I felt the positive power of social media as our WhatsApp group shared great insights from broad interactions with business leaders and negotiators, allowing us all to be better informed and to leverage our presence collectively.

And I sensed the positive power of social media to act quickly, both bringing the corporate voice to bear on a couple of occasions when we learned of wobbles in national delegations, and allowing courageous individuals to quickly reach out directly to key actors.

As the second week came to a close and I realised my work was coming to an end, serenity descended. Soothed by the epigrams of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, I took to slowly walking the hallways as the sense of impending climax created a crescendo of manic energy, bumping into running friends, encouraging them to walk, stopping for some calm exchanges.

On the final Thursday, I received a call and looked down at my phone to see that it was from Tom, but when I replied ‘Hi Tom’, a cheeky female voice with a familiar Latin American twang answered instead – it was Christiana using Toms’ phone! I thanked her for her work and asked how I could help. ‘That’s just the point’, she said, ‘I’ve called to thank you for all you and your team and the We Mean Business coalition have done’.

I knew then that we would have a deal, and a good one. But I couldn’t tell anyone! I went outside the hall into the crisp December air to reflect on the import of what we were collectively achieving. After a quick cry, and calls to my mother and my wife, Ann, I shared the news with my good friend and We Mean Business’ brilliant political strategist Ed Cameron. There followed a surreal 24 hours wandering the halls, speaking with friends, not knowing who knew, sure that many others did, feeling a sense of privilege, of pride and of comedy.

The closing session was later than originally planned and I will forever be grateful for the wisdom displayed by Tom in convincing me to stay until the final gavel, to witness the final theatre from a front-row seat.

I took my seat early next to Tom and another dear friend Paul Dickinson, founder of CDP. It was thrilling to see the human face of senior political figures such as the delegates from USA, China, India, Marshall Islands and many more exchanging high fives, hugs, taking selfies, sensing the historical import of the moment and their rare collective transcendence to serve the whole.

I enjoyed my own selfies with Paul and Tom and with Nick Stern and Al Gore! And then of course the final drama regarding that crucial nuance in the text and at last the Paris Agreement was a reality!

I was sitting right in front of a massive screen projecting the face of speakers as comments were given following the final gavel. Two of the first will stay with me forever – they illustrate the depth of compassion and the courage to embrace diversity which stood at the heart of the success of Paris. First to speak was Tony deBrum, representing the Marshall Islands and the small island states. His face glowed with emotion as he addressed COP president Laurent Fabius with genuine affection, acknowledging that he and his fellow community of islanders ‘had been listened to for the first time in 21 years’. This observation that the Paris process had been genuinely inclusive was confirmed by the next speaker, Venezuela’s representative Claudia Salerno.

She had first come to my attention in the opening plenary, when her complaint about the security procedures for entry into the COP had shocked me in its pettiness. But now, she was beaming as she addressed ‘Brother Fabius’, thanked him for his trust in giving her responsibility for managing the perambulatory text [she called it ‘revolutionary’!!], acknowledged that this text now contained many ideas dear to her heart that had been unthinkable a few weeks before, and announced that Venezuela had just submitted its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC).

In 2015, we proved that faith in each other and commitment to the whole are capable of delivering extraordinary achievements and I believe the Paris Agreement will go down as the most important and ambitious multilateral treaty ever.

Paris has provided us with a clear north star and a mechanism for ratcheting our ambition. Some parts of our energy transition are clear, others less so.

By 2020 we will have reached global peak carbon and will know that zero carbon grids, zero carbon transport and zero carbon buildings are both possible and desirable, both more quickly and more cheaply than we dared to dream. Growing numbers of businesses, cities and countries will be committing to this zero-carbon energy system future.

Our understanding of the various pathways to decarbonise heavy-emitting sectors will be richer, and we will be making real progress in exploring the possibilities of near-zero marginal cost electricity, the circular economy, and carbon usage.

We will increasingly be working on the two related problems which we need to address to complete the transition to a zero carbon economy – the systemic inequality within and between our societies and the broader relationship between the economy and our shared environmental commons.

My greatest lesson from the experience of Paris? We can come together in a broader form of multilateralism where the legal power of nation states works with the convening power of cities and the innovation power of the private sector to accelerate solutions to global challenges within clearly defined scientific boundaries. These planetary boundaries, as Johan Rockstrom describes them, are not a source of fear for the private sector – but a source of innovation. Long, loud and legal policy signals, based on solid science, provide both the certainty and the motivation for companies to innovate solutions for a global economy which operates within those boundaries.

In 2015 the concept of Science Based Targets (SBTs) was one year old and had 100 companies committed – less than three years later that number stands at over 400 and the practice of setting short- and long-term emissions reduction targets in line with the science of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the politics of the UNFCCC is being embedded in global capital markets. The Carney-Bloomberg Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosure [TCFD] has recommended that all financial actors and major companies consider the implications of the Paris targets in their strategies – effectively requiring companies to show that they have set a science-based target, have a plan to implement it and are on track to do so.

And so, we can imagine building on what we are learning in terms of implementing the climate constraint in capital markets via Paris, SBTs and the TCFD – extending that to the other elements of our global environmental commons, where we are living beyond our means. These are captured in the other environmental Sustainable Development Goals [water, life on land, life below water] and in the respective planetary boundaries [water, Phosphorous/Nitrogen flows, biodiversity, land use]. Work is now beginning to convert the science of these boundaries into their own Science Based Targets and the first major companies are already adopting these broader SBTs.

Perhaps now we can forge a solution from a combination of clear science, science-based targets for business and a concerted effort to address the risk to global financial markets of breaching our planetary boundaries. Perhaps now we can dare to dream that the Convention on Biological Diversity COP in China in 2020 will be where we apply the many lessons of Paris to our broader ecosystems. Perhaps at last we can plot a path towards the Regenerative Economics that will be the foundation of an Ecological Civilisation.

The transition to a zero carbon economy is inevitable. Now is the time for companies to start preparing for a zero carbon future.

Jill Duggan, Director of The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group

This milestone [Paris] Agreement is an important step in ensuring we can maintain quality of life on our planet for future generations.

Neil McArthur, CEO Arcadis

Now businesses are enabled to work together with governments and communities to shape the policies and take the actions necessary to transition to a low carbon future.

Richard Lancaster, CEO of CLP

We are entering an era of system transformation. Business is already playing a leadership role through global collaboration and low carbon partnership initiatives to drive innovation and structural change.

Peter Bakker, President of WBCSD

The global transition to a low-carbon economy is urgent, inevitable, and accelerating faster than we ever believed possible.

Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever and Chairman of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development

We are already not only bending the curve of emissions but actually already in a global consensus about the inevitability of the major shift that will occur in this century.

Christiana Figueres

Investors are interested in our total water stewardship as it is directly linked to our business strategy, long-term growth and company acceptance.

Coca-Cola HBC

In anticipation of changing weather patterns and potential shortages of water, we have made water efficiency a key strategic ambition shaping our product range.

Syngenta

Water risks pose social, environmental and ultimately financial risks. Therefore it is obligatory for all sites, affiliates and operations to include a water risk assessment within their overall risk assessment procedures.

Roche Holding

As corporations make an effort to enhance energy productivity there will be innovation and development of new technologies that will change the way we live and work.

Anirban Ghosh, CSO, Mahindra Group

We find that many of our suppliers can reduce their energy consumption by 5% or more with basic training and implementation of low-cost/no-cost improvement measures.

Reducing energy consumption will be the primary vehicle in achieving our goals. We are very pleased to be the first property company to sign up to EP100, ensuring we will increase our energy productivity for the benefit of our customers.

Robert Noel, Chief Executive, Land Securities

For a company with our global footprint, increasing our energy productivity by two-thirds as we have done since 2002 means that we are spending over US$100 million less in energy bills each year than if our energy productivity had remained constant.

Going 100% renewable will deliver on our consumer promise to deliver brands that are responsibly produced in a world of finite resources.

Marc Engel, Chief Supply Chain Officer, Unilever

Climate change is a huge risk to the long-term supply of safe, high quality ingredients for Nestlé’s products as crop yields fall and production areas shift. We are determined to play our part in taking climate action by purchasing renewable electricity.

Pascal Gréverath, Head of Environmental Sustainability, Nestlé

Renewable energy plays a key role in achieving our ongoing commitment to carbon neutrality, as we aim to use 100% renewable energy to meet our global electricity needs by 2020.

Anthony Cammarata, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs

Electricity costs are one of the largest components of our operating expenses at our data centers, and having a long-term stable cost of renewable power provides protection against price swings in energy.

Urs Hölzle, Senior Vice President, Technical Infrastructure, Google

By investing in renewables we can not only reduce our emissions but also future proof the business.

Laurel Peacock, Senior Manager of Sustainability, NRG

We wouldn’t be doing this if it didn’t make business and economic sense… It is the way the market is trending and what our customers are demanding.

Laurel Peacock, Senior Manager of Sustainability, NRG

Our target puts us in a good position vis-à-vis government regulation. We are fully compliant with the UK government’s existing targets, and would be well placed were they to introduce more stringent regulation for companies.

Tom Byrne, Energy Manager at Land Securities

We want to know how exposed a particular business is to the changing context on climate and what it is practically doing to make the changes required; including its targets, timeframes and the extent of its ambition.

Andy Howard, Head of Sustainable Research at Schroders

By doubling the efficiency of our US fleet [over five years], Walmart avoided the emission of nearly 650,000 metric tons of CO², while also saving nearly US$1 billion in the past fiscal year.

Rob Walton, Walmart

Ambitious greenhouse gas reduction goals help our teams rally around low-carbon innovation. Of course knowing that our goals are backed by the current climate research increases buy-in and commitment at all levels of the company.

Alexandra Palt, Chief Sustainability Officer, L’Oreal

We are working towards building a clean energy future. Expanding the share of renewables is key to addressing the chronic energy crisis our country is facing today.

Ramadas Kamath, Executive Vice President and Head – Infrastructure and Sustainability, Infosys

I believe that companies are, above all, agents of transformation. We all work at an intersection of economic, political, social and environmental dimensions and have either positive or negative impacts on all of them.

Guilherme Leal, B Team Leader and one of the founders of Natura Cosméticos

I spend a lot of my time saying to business leaders, we are citizens of the world. We cannot just leave things to the social sector and to the politicians to speak up about these climate change issues. We have as much clout as they, if not more than some of them, and we have the responsibility to speak out. And it makes good business sense.

Richard Branson, Founder, Virgin Group

…we’re working in partnerships even with our competitors, but also with governments and other industries. But to help us get there, we need policymakers to play their role. We need them to give us certainty. We need them to level out the playing field.

Hannah Jones, Vice President Sustainable Business & Innovation, Nike

When it comes to climate change, there is some concern about the regulatory policy system. We’re fearful of sudden government interaction. Nothing happens for four or five years and suddenly you are slammed with a huge regulatory system that you were unprepared for. Better to introduce it carefully and voluntarily now – rather than have it unleashed upon us.

Mike Barry, Director of Sustainable Business, Marks & Spencer

From a policy perspective, General Motors and businesses in general look for long-term certainty and clarity. When you get the market, the customers, our products and policy all aligned, that’s when you can drive true transformation of an industry.

David Tulauskas, Director Sustainability, General Motors

Two fiscal policy tools can drive decarbonisation: carbon pricing and the end of fossil fuel subsidies. Paying a price for emissions while, at the same time, encouraging the activity that causes them is perverse.

Sandrine Dixson-Declève, Director of The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group

No CEO would survive if they said climate change is not real

Mike Bloomberg, Former NYS Mayor

Moving capital toward a low-carbon economy protects their beneficiaries’ returns, and is one of the fastest ways to address global warming. Companies take note when investors take action, and when money moves, the world moves too.

Lance Pierce, President of CDP North America

California’s political and business leaders arrived (in Paris) with the clear conviction that climate is not only real, but demands action. Our experience offers a wealth of practical lessons for how to make rapid, sustainable progress toward the clean energy future.

Tony Earley, Chairman, CEO and President, PG&E

Science shows that climate change will reduce food productivity and food security at the same time our world’s population is growing and requiring us to feed more people with fewer natural resources.

John Bryant, CEO, Kellogg Company

As a global food company, we recognize the significant impacts climate change can have on our business if left unaddressed.

Ken Powell, CEO, General Mills

(Climate change) is absolutely a threat. And that’s why we’re doing all that we’re doing today.

Barry Parkin, CSO, Mars

I think what we’ve shown already in North Carolina is that when you provide the incentives – the investments tax credits for solar; when you have the renewable energy portfolio — it works.

Letitia Webster, Senior Director, VF

Low-carbon, sustainable investments are key to our future.

Tom DiNapoli, New York State Comptroller

We want the underlying companies in our ($300 billion) portfolio to be aligned with the transition to a low-carbon global economy.

Anne Simpson, Global Governance Investment Director, CalPERS

If you can do one thing for me today, please, never refer to clean energy as “alternative energy” again.

Getting to the Paris Agreement was the easy component, it meant setting the starting line. Now we have to turn those intentions into implemented activities and projects.

Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary, UNFCCC

There seems to be a tendency to believe that now that the Paris Agreement is done, it is now up to governments. But the real action starts now. The business community and civil society need to push governments so that they will keep this agreement.

Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary-General, United Nations

The once unthinkable has now become unstoppable. This train is moving. It started at the Paris station, it has to go and move.

Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary-General, United Nations

The entry into force of the Paris Agreement just ten months after COP21 is a defining moment for the global economy.

Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever and Chairman of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development

The global transition to a low-carbon economy is urgent, inevitable, and accelerating faster than we ever believed possible.

Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever and Chairman of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development

We are entering an era of system transformation. Business is already playing a leadership role through global collaboration and low carbon partnership initiatives to drive innovation and structural change.

Peter Bakker, President of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development

Now businesses are enabled to work together with governments and communities to shape the policies and take the actions necessary to transition to a low carbon future.

Richard Lancaster, CEO of CLP

This milestone Paris Agreement is an important step in ensuring we can maintain quality of life on our planet for future generations.

Neil McArthur, CEO Arcadis

The significance of the Paris Agreement and its universal impact cannot be underestimated. The transition to a zero carbon economy is inevitable. Now is the time for companies to start preparing for a zero carbon future.

Jill Duggan, Director of The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group

What the Paris Agreement means for business

Coalition Partners

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